ADMIN: Web Site Too Successful - Contributions May Be Needed

[Walt Bilofsky (Webmaster)]

As this message board approaches its fifth anniversary (this Thursday), our success has created a problem.

Up to now, I have been able to support this site (along with my yacht club, CDSOA, and my personal pages) as part of my $35/month personal account. This has been a terrific deal, but unfortunately the party is over.

We get 1,000 visits a day just to this page, and the Cape Dory reference pages are also widely used. Because of the Cape Dory traffic, the limits on my account have been far exceeded. My ISP now wants an additional $70 per month.

The long term solution is to move the site, and perhaps get other sponsorship. Assistant Webmaster Catherine Monaghan and I are exploring some options and making some progress.

But to keep the site operating in the short run, it may be necessary to ask for contributions. If you are willing to kick in a couple of bucks, please <a href="mailto:bilofsky@toolworks.com?subject=Board Contribution">email me privately</a> and let me know. Send no money now - I will let you know when it is needed. (I am being optimistic and don't want to wind up with a large slug of cash.)

Thanks for your support.

- Walt Bilofsky, Webmaster



bilofsky@toolworks.com

[Larry DeMers]

Walt,

I think that you now need to adjust your focus a little. Perhaps asking for donations will work, but consider this please: This is a club of like-minded sailors who love a great boat. I would not mind paying a buck or two more for the club burgee or the hats, and we could also get tee shirts made up and attach a small amount to it's sale also. The expressed purpose would be to raise operating capitol for the web site. Maybe then we would have more room..enough to add a projects area (thus saving me hours of learning how to program my own web page..jeesh, you would think I would have done one by now wouldn't you? Too much like work I guess)..but that would give a fairly good cash stream, and maybe enough to cover the entire web site?
Just a thought.

Cheers,

Larry DeMers
s/v DeLaMer

As this message board approaches its fifth anniversary (this Thursday), our success has created a problem.

Up to now, I have been able to support this site (along with my yacht club, CDSOA, and my personal pages) as part of my $35/month personal account. This has been a terrific deal, but unfortunately the party is over.

We get 1,000 visits a day just to this page, and the Cape Dory reference pages are also widely used. Because of the Cape Dory traffic, the limits on my account have been far exceeded. My ISP now wants an additional $70 per month.

The long term solution is to move the site, and perhaps get other sponsorship. Assistant Webmaster Catherine Monaghan and I are exploring some options and making some progress.

But to keep the site operating in the short run, it may be necessary to ask for contributions. If you are willing to kick in a couple of bucks, please <a href="mailto:bilofsky@toolworks.com?subject=Board Contribution">email me privately</a> and let me know. Send no money now - I will let you know when it is needed. (I am being optimistic and don't want to wind up with a large slug of cash.)

Thanks for your support.

- Walt Bilofsky, Webmaster

demers@sgi.com

[Jonathan Dodge]

Walt:

I would be happy to kick in $10-$15.00 each year. This page has sure saved me more than that.
Wait.... this is the page that got me into my TY... OK you owe me about 7K... Boats.. you have to love them!!


I love the page and want to keep it up.

Thanks for all your hard work

Jonathan Dodge
"Lion's Whelp"
1979 CD Typhoon
Lindstrom, MN



Jonathan.D.Dodge@HealthPartners.com

[D. Stump, Hanalei]

Captain Bilofsky,

The Pirate Ship Hanalei has caused to strike many vessels this year past. Prize ships were sent in so often that she barely has adequate crew for this weekends cruise. The Captain Commanding would be more than happy to share some of the booty with the Administrator of this site. It might be a lot easier for you to just ask for donations when you need them, than to follow sales of CD stuff and extract the amount needed to support the web.

I would be happy to contribute.....I remain Sir.....your most HUMBLE servant.....

Dave Stump
Captain Commanding
s/v Hanalei CD-30C
CDSOA #1

[John Nuttall]

Good suggestion........Allow me to add the following thoughts. They are just some quickly formulated thoughts that could serve as a framework for discussion:

It appears to me that several "chapters" and the "national" organization greatly benefit from this site. I would suggest they (national & chapters) "contribute" to the expense of operating the site. That "contribution" could be passed along to their members in the way of fees.

There are of course many "users" who belong to neither org., and they could volunteer "contributions". And perhaps some of the businesses that enjoy links could also "contribute".

Walt, I have already e-mailed you with my offer to "contribute" directly, and I stand by that still. Some sort of framework as proposed above (or whatever it evolves into) may be more equitable, and keep you from ending up with a "slug of cash"

Thoughtfully,
John Nuttall
s/v Aimless
CD31 #28
Hmpt: Oriental, NC

[Walt Bilofsky (Webmaster)]

Thanks to everyone for your offers of support. About 40 people have offered to contribute. I will contact the first seven people and ask them to send $10. The next month I will contact the next seven. When I run out of people I will post another request.

Re the suggestions for raising funds through merchandise - the income from our <a href="http://www.toolworks.com/capedory/ccdos ... ermaster's Shack</a> has not historically been enough to support the web site. And since CCDO is, by choice, a disorganized organization, the last thing we want is to be in a successful business, even if non-profit. My gosh, we might have to get a bank account!

OTOH I would like to point out that our caps are now available reading just "Cape Dory Skipper", in addition to the traditional "California Cape Dory Skipper". These and the tasteful license plate frames are geographically neutral and all are welcome to buy. If the treasury gets a bit more flush, we'll let it buy a month of web service.

Regarding the web site, for the increased fee my Internet Service Provider is moving us to a faster server with more disk space. So we should see better response from here on.

- Walt Bilofsky, Webmaster

<center>

<a href="http://www.toolworks.com/capedory/ccdostore.htm"><img src="http://www.toolworks.com/capedory/plateframe.gif" hspace="5" border=0 width="280" height="143">
OK, Buy a Tchotchke.</a></center>



bilofsky@toolworks.com

[Mario]

I think this is an important topic for discussion, and I for one would be more than happy to contribute money. (BTW, Paypal is a convenient way to collect money online---www.paypal.com).

The information here is invaluable and available nowhere else.

I'm not sure what the best way is to fund a site--maybe increase the CDSOA dues? Make it a password-operated site available only to paying member (unappealing)?

Mario



capedory252@aol.com

[Steve Ingmire]

As this message board approaches its fifth anniversary (this Thursday), our success has created a problem.

Up to now, I have been able to support this site (along with my yacht club, CDSOA, and my personal pages) as part of my $35/month personal account. This has been a terrific deal, but unfortunately the party is over.

We get 1,000 visits a day just to this page, and the Cape Dory reference pages are also widely used. Because of the Cape Dory traffic, the limits on my account have been far exceeded. My ISP now wants an additional $70 per month.

The long term solution is to move the site, and perhaps get other sponsorship. Assistant Webmaster Catherine Monaghan and I are exploring some options and making some progress.

But to keep the site operating in the short run, it may be necessary to ask for contributions. If you are willing to kick in a couple of bucks, please <a href="mailto:bilofsky@toolworks.com?subject=Board Contribution">email me privately</a> and let me know. Send no money now - I will let you know when it is needed. (I am being optimistic and don't want to wind up with a large slug of cash.)

Thanks for your support.

- Walt Bilofsky, Webmaster

Add me to your list of donators. I also love the idea of T-Shirts ( Quality cotton of corse).
What ever it takes to keep this site going. Keep us in the know



chiping@tcol.net

[Bruce Bett]

Walt:

Any way you want to do it is fine. I have e-mailed you as you requested. What I have discovered over the years dealing with community organizations of various types, (make no mistake about it this is a community (of interest) organization) is that they go on as long as someone is willing to do the work and meet the expanse. Please keep this simple and fun for you, and let me know if there is anything else I can do.

Bruce Bett
Sostenuto
CD 25 #496

As this message board approaches its fifth anniversary (this Thursday), our success has created a problem.

Up to now, I have been able to support this site (along with my yacht club, CDSOA, and my personal pages) as part of my $35/month personal account. This has been a terrific deal, but unfortunately the party is over.

We get 1,000 visits a day just to this page, and the Cape Dory reference pages are also widely used. Because of the Cape Dory traffic, the limits on my account have been far exceeded. My ISP now wants an additional $70 per month.

The long term solution is to move the site, and perhaps get other sponsorship. Assistant Webmaster Catherine Monaghan and I are exploring some options and making some progress.

But to keep the site operating in the short run, it may be necessary to ask for contributions. If you are willing to kick in a couple of bucks, please <a href="mailto:bilofsky@toolworks.com?subject=Board Contribution">email me privately</a> and let me know. Send no money now - I will let you know when it is needed. (I am being optimistic and don't want to wind up with a large slug of cash.)

Thanks for your support.

- Walt Bilofsky, Webmaster

bettb@macomb.cc.mi.us

[John R.]

Good suggestion........Allow me to add the following thoughts. They are just some quickly formulated thoughts that could serve as a framework for discussion:

It appears to me that several "chapters" and the "national" organization greatly benefit from this site. I would suggest they (national & chapters) "contribute" to the expense of operating the site. That "contribution" could be passed along to their members in the way of fees.

There are of course many "users" who belong to neither org., and they could volunteer "contributions". And perhaps some of the businesses that enjoy links could also "contribute".

Walt, I have already e-mailed you with my offer to "contribute" directly, and I stand by that still. Some sort of framework as proposed above (or whatever it evolves into) may be more equitable, and keep you from ending up with a "slug of cash"

Thoughtfully,
John Nuttall
s/v Aimless
CD31 #28
Hmpt: Oriental, NC

I think John N. is on the right track. A framework of some type should be developed and being that $70 /mo is what is needed I think it should be voluntary by folks because it is such a small amount. Also some people can afford to send more than others and some can send more often then others.

I think all users should contribute to some degree on a regular basis and the site should not be solely dependent on a limited selected list that is rotated month to month, I don't think that is fair for just a few folks to carry the load for all of us. I totally agree with John that linked businesses should be requested to contribute. I don't see why a seperate advertiser page or pages can't be established on the site that could easily generate enough dinero to support this site. There could be banner links on that page and also text links and the advertisers (marine related) would pay according to chosen link type and duration. Those links could be very useful to CD owners and save a lot of descriptive text that takes place in the posted messages repeatedly, wasting space on the site.

I don't think the notion of marketing CD paraphenalia to support this site (which would be hit or miss in my estimation)would be in the spirit of the concept of this site. I think it is probably enough work and very time consuming to maintain this site without the added burden of product marketing which would probably be more of a hardship then it is worth. If some CD owners want to produce T-shirts and such and market them through the site with a percentage of the proceeds going to administrative costs then that is another matter entirely. That could help the site and share the work load. They could advertise the wares on the advertisement page.

Just my wooden nickels worth of thoughts on the matter.

[Ken Cave]

Is it possible to make this board the official Cape Dory Association, instead of the California Cape Dory Association? In Anacortes, WA alone we have two CD 28, A CD 30 A CD 33, Two CD 25, and one Cd 25 (outboard) as well as a CD 27 and a CD 36 in a nearby marina!

If you contact John Vigor, who has his boat in Bellingham, WA, you will find at least two CD's at his marina-and the list goes on!!

A many thanks to the California Association for its wonderful job in the past years in keeping the Cape Dory name out in front, but, now is the time to make this a national association with annual dues of at least $20.00, which would be accepted by the dedicated CD owners with great enthusiasm!(Yup, you will have to open a bank account, and even elect officers and establish bylaws-heaven forbid-and even get a federal ID number for the tax man!)

You have my address, please let me know where to send my check!!

Thanks again for all your work in keeping this great site successful!

Ken Cave
CD 28 #227



bcave@whidbey.net

[Mark Yashinsky]

Walt, you said your ISP wants an "ADDITIONAL" $70 ($105 total) or do you mean the monthly rate is GOING to $70??? Do you get any additional services by going to the "commercial" account (more server space, better response to site complaints, etc)???

[Catherine Monaghan]

Mark,

That's $70 in addition to what's already being paid out of Walt's pocket. The current ISP limits our account to 50MB of disk space and the number of "requests" is limited to 200MB/day and 2000 hits/day. For the site to continue we'll need both additional disk space and an increase in the allotted number of "hits" to the site. This will cost us. Both Walt and I are exploring the options that are available to us. We'll keep you posted.


Cathy
catherine_monaghan@merck.com
CD32 Realization, #3
CCDOA Assistant Webmaster

Walt, you said your ISP wants an "ADDITIONAL" $70 ($105 total) or do you mean the monthly rate is GOING to $70??? Do you get any additional services by going to the "commercial" account (more server space, better response to site complaints, etc)???

catherine_monaghan@merck.com

[Warren Kaplan]

Catherine and Walt;

I'm quite sure that raising the funds for the continuance of this board will be no problem as all of us realize how valuable this board is. Many people have websites, both personal and commercial, that have the costs defrayed, either partially or totally, by allowing commercial banner ads on their site. Its a thought. This board gets a 1000 hits a day if memory serves. Perhaps marine industry companies like West Marine or Boat US would like a banner with a direct link to their URL. 3 companies at $35 a month (a pittance for a board that deals in "old boats" that always need something) would raise the $105 per month. I don't think the users of this board would be too upset if the pristine appearance of the CCDOA site was altered by a few small banners considering its purpose. It might, in fact, be easier to manage "bookkeepingwise" than some arrangement to have willing participants contribute. I've never gone the "banner route" so I don't know if there are any glaring pitfalls that would make the suggestion unsuitable for our purposes. As I said, its a thought.

Warren Kaplan
S/V Sine Qua Non
CD27 #166



Setsail728 @aol.com

[Walt Bilofsky]

Is it possible to make this board the official Cape Dory Association, instead of the California Cape Dory Association? In Anacortes, WA alone we have two CD 28, A CD 30 A CD 33, Two CD 25, and one Cd 25 (outboard) as well as a CD 27 and a CD 36 in a nearby marina! <snip>

Hi, Ken -

There is already a well-organized <a href="http://www.toolworks.com/cdsoa">Cape Dory Sailboat Owners Association</a>, with dues, bank account, a fine newsletter and insurance. They probably have that tax ID number too.

This message board serves our laid-back California CDO, the CDSOA, and all other Cape Dory owners as well. So it does make sense to make this board more universal, and something along those lines is bound to happen soon. But judging from the response to this request, the group can support this board without having to open a bank account.

With all those Cape Dorys in Washington, have you considered forming a local group? If you feel the need for a tax ID and don't want to get your own, CDSOA encourages and supports regional fleets.

Regards,

Walt



bilofsky@toolworks.com